West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.Net) – Augustus Asset Managers of Britain have relaunched their quantitative currency hedge fund after some remodeling of it’s computer-driven strategy.

The Systematic Fund, which was originally launched on July 1 of last year, abruptly closed in November after experiencing losses fueled by the U.S. subprime mortgage meltdown.

The fund is currently being seeded, which means that it is not open to outside investors.

"It’s being road-tested. This is the second systematic fund we’ve launched in the last year. It’s a reworking of the first, as the first one did not work as well as we’d expected," said Augustus Chief Executive Tim Haywood.

Quantitative funds are unique in that they rely on computer models to make their bets. The systems are designed to locate and take advantage of tiny inefficiencies in the marketplace. Quantitative hedge funds also generally employ esoteric trading strategies, and often use derivatives, options and futures to achieve greater returns. However, the extreme volatility in the marketplace that resulted from the subprime mortgage mess, made a lot of quantitative funds plummet from their high uses of leverage.

The Augustus fund aims to predict future moves and generate large returns by observing the drivers of currency movements. Augustus manages about $13 billion in assets, with $1 billion of that tied up in hedge funds.

Julie Scuderi
Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net
Email: julie@hedgeco.net

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